WWE Survivor Series 2019 is set to start at 4pm PT/7pm ET, emanating live from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. With Survivor Series being one of WWE's "big four" flagship pay-per-views, the card is understandably stacked, with the main focus being on the battle for brand supremacy between Raw, SmackDown, and NXT.
The NXT wrestlers have already went through hell and back this weekend, with many members of the roster brutalizing each other in a pair of dangerous WarGames matches. NXT TakeOver: WarGames was overall quite a good show, with the women's WarGames Match standing out as particularly exciting. Whether or not anything on the WWE Survivor Series 2019 card is able to match it remains to be seen, but it looks like there could be quite a few Match of the Year contenders tonight.
Which WWE brand will come out on top? Will any championships change hands? We'll find out throughout the night as WWE Survivor Series 2019 rages on.
1. Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Raw vs. Team NXT vs. Team SmackDown
Winners: Team NXT. Having 15 people in one Survivor Series Elimination Match is a little much, and that was proven for the bulk of this nearly 40 minute long match. Everyone's power levels drop in Survivor Series matches, and that was the case here, with wrestlers getting eliminated with moves that they would otherwise shrug off. A story started early on when Candice LeRae and Io Shirai were both sent to the back for mysterious injuries, putting Team NXT at a disadvantage.
Then the focus shifted to turmoil between members of Team Raw. Charlotte was dominant, but wasn't getting along with Asuka, who blinded her own team captain with Green Mist. This allowed Charlotte to get eliminated, and Asuka went to the back. This left Natalya by herself, but luckily Natalya was able to team with the sole remaining Team SmackDown wrestler, Sasha Banks, to eliminate Bianca Belair and Toni Storm. Belair, by the way, had another great showing after being one of the standout performers at WarGames, and she will likely be a huge star in the future.
The end of the match came when Banks turned on Natalya to eliminate her, leaving it just between Banks and Rhea Ripley. Ripley and Banks put on a clinic against each other, trading submissions and making it seem as though Ripley was going to submit to the Bank Statement. However, LeRae and Shirai ran back down to the ring, revealing that they apparently faked their injuries so that they could get a late-match advantage. This strategy worked, with Ripley able to hit Banks with the Rip Tide to pick up the victory.
The stuff between Banks and Ripley was great, and there were a number of fun interactions throughout the match, with the Charlotte/Asuka stuff being especially entertaining. However, this match was also a mess and definitely dragged at times. That was more due to the sheer number of people involved less so than the talent of those in the match, however.
Grade: B+
2. Triple Threat Match: AJ Styles vs. Roderick Strong vs. Shinsuke Nakamura w/ Sami Zayn
Winner: Roderick Strong. This match was no Styles/Daniels/Joe, but it was a solid Triple Threat Match with good pacing and strong technical wrestling. There weren't any standout spots really, but that doesn't mean the match was unmemorable. Solid, logical mat wrestling and striking took the place of what would usually be a spot-heavy match. The finish of the match came when AJ Styles hit Nakamura with the Phenomenal Forearm, only for Roddy to dump Styles and pick up the pinfall victory on Shinsuke. With Roddy's victory, NXT is dominating the "brand supremacy angle," and at this point, counting the pre-show matches, NXT is leading with 3 victories versus 1 victory apiece between Raw and SmackDown.
Grade: B+
3. NXT Championship Match: Adam Cole (c) vs. Pete Dunne
Winner: Adam Cole. The crowd was weirdly mellow for the first half of this match, though they got super hot after Adam Cole countered a Pete Dunne moonsault with a superkick right to the face. Prior to that, the story of the match was that both of these men were hurt from their matches from TakeOver: WarGames, and each competitor took advantage of their opponent's injury. This did see a lame spot where Dunne put Cole's arm on steel steps and stomped on his elbow, which is something that has been used quite a bit the last few years but always looks dumb. There is zero reason for the person not to move their arm, so it just looks hokey, and really clashes with Dunne's otherwise realistic, hard-hitting style. That one blemish aside, this match was otherwise pretty great, with Cole nailing a picture-perfect Panama Sunrise on the apron. There were perhaps too many false finishes and maybe there shouldn't have been finisher kickouts considering the fact that both came into the match already "hurt," but the match was still engaging and the crowd literally gave it a standing ovation at one point. The finish came when Cole countered Dunne's Bitter End into another Panama Sunrise, and then followed it up with the Last Shot to the back of the head to retain his title.
Grade: A
4. Universal Championship Match: "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
Winner: "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt. WWE ruined "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt with the horrible Hell in a Cell 2019 match that not only buried Rollins and The Fiend, but the concept of the "Hell in a Cell match" itself. Since then, his character has struggled to recover, even after finally winning the Universal Championship from Seth Rollins at Crown Jewel. In any case, no one went into this match thinking Daniel Bryan was going to win, which robbed it of some tension. The blinding red light that has to be used for every Fiend match also made it difficult to see what was going on all the time. But even so, it was a solid match, continuing Fiend's near-invincibility as he no sold direct kicks to the head and kicked out of Bryan's running knee.
It was nice to see Bryan working as a face again, and the "YES!" chants were thunderous. Bryan's comeback was done well and got the crowd behind him in a big way, especially when he managed to counter both Sister Abigail and the Mandible Claw. Ultimately, The Fiend would catch Bryan with a Mandible Claw in the middle of the ring that caused Bryan to pass out, allowing Wyatt to get the pinfall victory to retain his title.
Grade: B
5. Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Raw vs. Team NXT vs. Team SmackDown
Winners: Team SmackDown. With 15 men all having to get their stuff in, this match suffered from a similar problem as the women's match. It was way too long, and there was way too much going on in the early-going. As wrestlers were eliminated, the match became better and more focused. But even though this match took forever, everyone still had a shining moment, with a number of notable spots throughout the match. "Shorty G" Chad Gable put on a mat wrestling clinic with Matt Riddle (and also dumped poor Ricochet on his head with a Chaos Theory). Randy Orton took everyone out with an RKO, and wound up getting pinned by Riddle for his efforts. Braun Strowman, who has been completely ruined by WWE's booking at this point, was eliminated via count-out.
The crowd was white hot for this entire match. Walter actually started the thing with Drew McIntyre and Strowman, and Walter was quite possibly the most-over competitor in the entire match. He was the first one eliminated, eating a pin after taking a Claymore from McIntyre, and that earned deafening boos from the crowd along with a loud "bulls***" chant.
The crowd was very hot near the end of the match as well, when it was Seth Rollins, Reigns, Corbin, Tommaso Ciampa, and Keith Lee as the final competitors. Rollins had nuclear heat, possibly due to his Twitter interactions with CM Punk recently. Reigns was cheered over Rollins, but was booed whenever he got offense in against the NXT guys. Ultimately what would happen was Reigns turned on Corbin, nailing him with a Spear and allowing Ciampa to pin him. Rollins and Reigns then teamed up against the NXT competitors as a callback to their Shield days, eliminating Ciampa from the match.
Keith Lee was the last wrestler standing for Team NXT, and he put on a great show with Rollins and Reigns. Lee managed to pin Rollins to eliminate him from the match, but he himself was eliminated by a Spear from Reigns. Reigns fist-bumped Lee after the match to show his respect, and overall this match did a pretty great job of getting the NXT guys over, even in defeat. NXT's general dominance at Survivor Series is likely an attempt by the WWE to get the Raw and SmackDown audiences to tune in to NXT on Wednesday nights and give it an edge in the ongoing Wednesday Night Wars, and this is exactly how to accomplish that goal.
Grade: A
6. No Holds Barred Match for the WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) w/ Paul Heyman vs. Rey Mysterio
Winner: Brock Lesnar. The first half of the match was typical Lesnar fare, with Brock dominating Mysterio effortlessly and suplexing him around the ring. Lesnar also delivered a belly-to-belly suplex to Mysterio on the floor through the announce table cover, which looked pretty brutal. The story of this match was that Mysterio kept trying to use a lead pipe against Lesnar as an equalizer, but Brock wouldn't give him the chance. Eventually, Dominick Mysterio, who has been routinely brutalized by Brock on WWE TV these past few weeks, came down to throw in the towel for his dad. This gave Mysterio the opportunity he needed to hit Brock with a low blow, which was followed up by a low blow from Dominick. Rey and Dominick then laid into Brock with the lead pipe and a steel chair, calling back to some previous beat-downs Mysterio has dished out to Brock on TV. The father/son duo then nailed Lesnar with a double 619, followed by two Frog Splashes in succession. Lesnar was still able to kick out, hit Dominick with a devastating German suplex, and catch Mysterio in mid-air to finish him off with an F5. This match was short, but it had more story going into it than pretty much any other match on the card, and the story it told was fairly engaging, building on events that happened on WWE TV and the Crown Jewel pay-per-view. It will be interesting to see where these two go from here, as this is presumably the end of their feud.
Grade: A-
7. Triple Threat Match: Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Bayley
Winner: Shayna Baszler. Yikes. The crowd was exhausted by the time this match came along, which didn't do it any favors, and some of the air was sucked out of the building when it became apparent that the rumored CM Punk return wasn't happening. That was a long-shot anyway, but it didn't stop the Chicago area crowd from chanting for CM Punk all night. This match also got some "boring" chants, and to be fair, it was a dull match. The dynamic was weird because of how over Becky Lynch is as a face, yet Baszler, who is usually a heel, was also a default face in this match due to her alignment with NXT. Then early on there was a botched move from Bayley and the match was more or less derailed from that point on. The crowd finally started to give it a chance near the end, mostly popping for moves from Baszler. Baszler wound up getting the victory by forcing Bayley to submit, further proving the agenda of getting NXT over as a proper third brand and not a mere developmental territory. After the match, Lynch but Baszler through an announce table to send the crowd home happy.
Grade: D+
Survivor Series had a strong card going in, and most matches delivered. The crowd was into the show for the most part, which helped elevate even the weaker showings on the card. There was really only one match that really stood out as "bad," with everything else meeting expectations or exceeding them. There have been better Survivor Series events over the years, but this show was a significant step up from both Hell in a Cell and Crown Jewel. The next WWE pay-per-view may not have the NXT talent to give it a push, though, so it will be interesting to see if WWE can keep the quality up for TLC on December 15.